Cheatz_N_Trickz

Maybe you shouldnt be playing games like GTA or TLOU if you are this sensitive. That goes for all the people who criticised this part of the game.

You simply cannot accuse me of a straw man argument when you, yourself, said, in perfectly clear wording, that your criticism of sensitivity applies to all people who criticize that mission.

I can. Common sense should tell you that I mean criticisms of a sensitive nature since that is what my comment is addressing. I said ''that goes for...'' and you have demonstrated above that you know the ''that'' in question refers to my sensitivity statement. So why then would I say that my point on sensitivity goes for everyone who had any criticism, regardless of the nature of it, for the mission? It makes no sense to say that goes for people who have unrelated criticisms, like yours.

I wouldn't. I didn't. So there was nothing there, and you still drew your conclusion. Your fault.

ChiroVette

I can. Common sense should tell you that I mean criticisms of a sensitive nature since that is what my comment is addressing. I said ''that goes for...'' and you have demonstrated above that you know the ''that'' in question refers to my sensitivity statement. So why then would I say that my point on sensitivity goes for everyone who had any criticism, regardless of the nature of it, for the mission? It makes no sense to say that goes for people who have unrelated criticisms, like yours.

I wouldn't. I didn't. So there was nothing there, and you still drew your conclusion. Your fault.

No.

Common sense tells me that when you said "That goes for all the people who criticised this part of the game." that you meant "That goes for all the people who criticised this part of the game." There really isn't a whole lot of wiggle-room in that, is there? lol

If you were cherry-picking your intended "targets" you should have said so. It isn't my fault that you unintentionally lumped all people criticizing this mission for ANY REASON into the same group without even considering criticisms like mine, which are logistical and not emotional. Dude, just admit you didn't mean it the way you phrased it and move on! lol come on, man! You and I have had MANY arguments, but I don't think you are this unreasonable. Do you really want to dig your heels in on this one, when you said PRECISELY what I quoted and a plain text reading, without any mind-reading, yields only one possible interpretation?

Jeeze, dude, do you really think you are the first person in the history of message forums to fire off a post that was worded in a way you didn't actually mean? Will your universe really unravel if you admit that you phrased that poorly, and stop trying to make it seem like I made some interpretation mistake when those were your exact words?

Jeeze, dude, its okay to be wrong, particularly when you meant something different than what you fired off in a post. lol

Another thing. For any critics of the OP:

Here, let's analyze the first post in this thread, obviously created by FilthyLittleGod. Let's see if he is being irrational, unreasonable, or "too sensitive" for a GTA player.

Well, I just had to brutally torture a guy as Trevor.

This is just a factual statement, nothing more.

And I'm not sure how I feel about it.

This is honest. It is also NOT in any way critical of the game, the writing, the mission, or Rockstar for creating the mission or content.

I was surprised that I was not given a choice to refuse torturing or another option or means to get the information.

This is completely valid, as he was merely being honest about the fact that he was surprised. Notice, again, that he did NOT say that this made the mission or the game bad or wrong. He just expressed surprise that something this brutal was forced on the player and you had to torture Mr. K in order to move the story forward.

A lot of people were surprised by this, me included. Again, though, surprise is not criticism.

I felt powerless.

Understandable as you don't have the power to decide not to torture Mr. K, right? But, there again, feeling powerless is NOT criticizing the game. It is expressing a feeling.

I didn't WANT to torture him.

I would think that most people didn't want to torture him. I think this is part of what Dan Houser was trying to accomplish with this mission. He wanted people to think about the fact that torturing one guy in an abandoned warehouse is really no worse than all the murder and mayhem many of us have been causing in GTA games for over 16 years now. But putting a torture in everyone's faces forces us to face a reality that I honestly believe most people playing GTA have overlooked for over a decade.

It is a great videogame object lesson, to be honest. I didn't want to torture him either. Because slaughtering people and even mass murder from afar, in a vehicle, running on the streets, or shooting rockets at them from helicopters is an easy thing to become so desensitized to that the player can simply forget that they are butchering people in a brutal way, which is arguably a lot worse than torturing one guy in a warehouse but does not have the same impact because you don't see it right in front of your face.

Its a great object lesson for a GTA player, to be honest, even if I think the mission was poorly designed and just as poorly implemented and written.

It was weird.

From the standpoint of what players have come to expect from GTA games, it was initially weird. Definitely takes some getting used to. But, again, saying it was weird, is not criticising it or Rockstar.

It reminded me of the ending of Last Of Us when you are in that hospital room finally saving Ellie and you HAVE to kill the three medical technicians in the room.

That was a weird experience.

I never played the last of us, but I can get the gist of what FilthyLittleGod is saying here. He is noting that both endings were weird experiences. Again, he isn't criticizing, just trying to engage in a discussion.

I'm not going to lie, I'm kind of shaken up!

Since this is precisely what Dan Houser was going for, I would say mission accomplished. The OP reacted precisely as he was supposed to, and came to this forum to discuss the matter, which is also what he was supposed to do. Though, not necessarily this forum, there are many places people could discuss this scene and its impact on the player.

How did you guys feel about this part of the game?

See? All he is doing is trying to discuss this in..........wait for it.....................a discussion forum.

D9fred95

I personally didn't even know By The Book was the controversial part when I first played. After years playing games like SA and Saints Row where I can dress up like a silly goof and beat people to death with flowers or a dildo, ripping some dudes' tooth out with pliers is so mundane. I felt the same way with No Russian in MW2, gunning down innocents would've held more weight if there weren't so many games out there where going on a rampage was as easy as one two three.

-Captain-

I mean, in all honestly, if that is something that would shake you up I don't think a game like GTA should be something you want to play in the first place. I will assume that everyone who has played a Grand Theft Auto title has done their fair share of useless violence and killing, and hell that's like a summary of the GTA games.

Animations, voice acting and realism were pretty damn tame in my opinion. I've definitely seen worse in games, movies, tv series and even comics.

ChiroVette

I mean, in all honestly, if that is something that would shake you up I honestly don't think a game like GTA should be something you want to play in the first place. I will assume that everyone who has played a Grand Theft Auto title has done their fair share of useless violence and killing, and hell that's like a summary of the GTA games.

Animations, voice acting and realism were pretty damn tame in my opinion. I've definitely seen worse in games, movies, tv series and even comics.

I disagree with the statement I highlighted in red and made bold. Not because you aren't making a fair point, particularly with the rest of your post, because you are making sense. BUT because an up close and personal torture scene is more intimately violent and brutal than 99% of the crap we do in GTA games. Not because its more actually violent, but because most of what we do in sandbox games like GTA, Saints Row, Just Cause, etc., are from a more comfortable distance, so its easy to forget that you are basically causing pixelated carnage.

Moreover, it is not a fair thing to say that people who would find that torture scene disturbing should not be playing a game like GTA. That is a little ridiculous for two reasons:

First is because Dan Houser made it very clear that his intent with that scene was for it to be disturbing and to make gamers uncomfortable.

Second, why would a level of discomfort with a particular part of a game, a small part that lasts a couple of minutes at most, mean that the person shouldn't be enjoying the rest of what a game like GTA has to offer? It is very judgemental to categorically say that the only way someone should be playing a game like GTA is for them to be completely comfortable with intimate torture in a game. People are uncomfortable and comfortable with all sorts of things.

I will give you a for instance: I didn't like the game Manhunt. At the time, back on the PS2 era of GTA games, that game was insanely brutal and violent. But here's the thing: The entire game was like that. So I saw it kind of like the videogame version of one of those crazy-bloody slasher films or movies with words like "Chainsaw Massacre" in the title. What you are failing to take into account is that a movie like that, or a game like Manhunt (if I remember the game correctly) are targeting people who really like a lot of blood and guts and overt violence in their games.

Say what you want about GTA games, but most of the violence in it takes place at a more comfortable distance. So GTA, even with one, lone torture scene, is NOT in any way the videogame equivalent of a slasher film

So saying that anyone uncomfortable with By the Book because of torture is like saying that not liking slasher films or blood and guts in movies should never go see horror movies. When the reality is that MOST horror movies have one or two bloody or horrific scenes, but it isn't the mainstay of the entire film. Likewise, I would say that people who are uncomfortable with that kind of violence should probably NOT play Manhunt or even that old original XBox 360 launch title, Condemned. But there is a difference between having to endure one or two scenes a player (or moviegoer) is uncomfortable with, while enjoying the rest of the game or movie, and intentionally seeking out an entire game or film that boasts nothing but that level of debauchery.

Same with porn verses soft-porn. Some people don't like to see hardcore pornography, but really love nudity or milder sex scenes. They would probably be all right with one or two really graphic scenes if it meant they get to enjoy the other 90 minutes, right? I just think that it is highly reactionary to judge someone as "probably shouldn't play games like GTA" because they are uncomfortable with one or two scenes in a huge, expansive game.

Also, there is a huge difference between being uncomfortable with something while enduring it AND coming out publicly to judge and condemn it, right? The OP, for example, is not going on websites or trying to get store owners to take GTA V off the shelves, similar to what Jack Thompson and all those angry liberal activist groups did with GTA games.

You really have to ask yourself, why does a person have to be completely comfortable with every, single facet of a game to be somehow worthy of playing it?

TheSadisticOwl

Also, tbh, that torture scene was nothing compared to some more brutal stuff in other games. Like burning civillians with white phosphorus in Spec Ops: The Line or the death screams in Red Orchestra. I dunno what all the fuzz about it was about, I still think Ermac pulling out the opponent's intestines through the mouth in Mortal Kombat X was the most horrid thing I've seen in recent gaming years, at least from what I can think of right now.

EDIT: Oh and by the way, you don't have to kill the three doctors when saving Ellie in TLOU.

Lioshenka

I did not like this, but did it anyway. What I found much worse than this was a mission in GTA 4 where you had to steal an old guy from prison and kill him. There was no way to avoid this, no way of letting him go etc. I spent a lot of time trying to somehow pass the mission without killing him, in the end, I managed to get him to run after me and slip off the cliff and drowning. I felt bad for not being able to help him, but at least it was his own fault for not being careful.

I did not like this, but did it anyway. What I found much worse than this was a mission in GTA 4 where you had to steal an old guy from prison and kill him. There was no way to avoid this, no way of letting him go etc. I spent a lot of time trying to somehow pass the mission without killing him, in the end, I managed to get him to run after me and slip off the cliff and drowning. I felt bad for not being able to help him, but at least it was his own fault for not being careful.

I hated R* for this mission.

Of course there's no way to avoid it because the whole reason he's broken out to be silenced is so he doesn't rat out leading to the arrests of Derrick and his associates. Why would Niko and Packie go to all that trouble just to let him go?

Pedinhuh

Maybe you shouldnt be playing games like GTA or TLOU if you are this sensitive. That goes for all the people who criticised this part of the game.

I think that lumping all people who have criticisms of this mission into the same hypersensitive category is a little myopic. There are some valid criticisms of this mission, which I will get into in a moment, that have nothing to do with being sensitive to the content.

I felt like that part of the game, that specific mission, didn't add anything remotely relevant to the storyline at all.

Its more than that, though, because torture, in and of itself, absolutely could have added to the story. I don't think its wrong or a bad idea to use a torture scene to elucidate what a maniac Trevor is and what a callous, unfeeling douchebag Haines is.

However, the mission itself is problematic for several reasons:

First, Trevor's little lecture at the end of the mission to Mr. K about how Torture is not an effective means of extracting information. That is an absurd urban legend based on one fact taken too far. The fact of the matter is that on 99.999% of the population, even the mere threat of physical discomfiture is enough to get them to cough up any information you may want from them. Actually going as far as to start pulling teeth, breaking bones, using electric shock, and waterboarding will easily entice most people to give you any info you want from them. It is a common thing to spit out in the media that "Torture is not an effective means of extracting information," but the problem is that most people regurgitating this little aphorism forget the second, and most important part. "Torture is not an effective means of extracting information with people who are highly trained operatives who have had extensive training in resisting advanced interrogation techniques."

Navy Seals, Delta Force, CIA Black Ops, Israeli Mossad, even Al Qaeda operatives who have been tortured, as part of their training, can resist being tortured. But most people are NOT in this category, and torture, would, thus, be highly effective.

This brings me to my second criticism of this mission, in that Mr K is not a high level Al Quaeda operative. He was whinging, crying, and begging the whole time, something an operative would never do, unless he was faking it. Which clearly he was not, given that once he was in the car with Trevor afterward, he continued blubbering and begging. He also had no Earthly idea why Trevor was saving his life by making him leave Los Santos and disappear off the grid, something any operative would have completely understood. Given all the context of both that mission and all the other encounters with Mr K, it is very clear that this guy was either exactly what he said he was, a regular guys with "dark skin" who installed home theater, and had no terrorist affiliation, but simply had some information he came across because of associates or friends. If he was an operative at all, given his personality, affect, and responses to all that was happening to him, he was very low level, and would certainly not have had the training to withstand FOUR separate torture events simultaneously, only giving it up in dips and drabs with each attack, before coughing up the information he did actually have. He would have given it much more easily, maybe a couple of punches to the face or stomach. But no way he withstands the punishment Trevor doles out before giving up the guy with the beard who chains-mokes lol.

He also had a wife and kids, something that if he really was a high level operative or terrorist would be a no-no. And certainly even if he had a fictitious family for cover reasons, or blending in, any operative would leave them in a minute when Trevor informed him he needed to disappear.

The problem with the torture scene isn't that there is torture, its that it comes off as trying too hard to be edgy and like Rockstar was so desperate to add a torture scene for, as they put it, "social commentary," that they never bothered to make the scene congruous with the rest of the story, or even with any form of narrative cohesion.

I also find it annoying that in a GTA game, they had to try so hard to be edgy, that they abandoned all sense of storytelling to do it. I mean, when the hell has GTA ever needed to try hard to be edgy or to use social commentary? GTA, since its inception, has lived on the edge. Even as far back as 2001, GTA III allowed players to slaughter law enforcement and innocent people, destroy ungodly amounts of public property, and be able to do it without any legal reprisals. Hot Coffee in San Andreas was edgy, and not only did they not try and put it in people's faces, like the torture scene in V, they actually hid it in the game so it would not be found by most.

The idea that Rockstar has to try this hard to be edgy is ridiculous. They were the first company to truly allow the kinds of unbridled freedom to cause chaos. It may not seem edgy now, because everyone copied them from Volition to Team Soho to Avalanche and on and on, but being the first to do it was incredibly edgy.

Finally, the biggest problem with the torture scene is that they did it in a way that was pointless. As I said, Mr K would have given the information, since he was a tech guy and family man, not a high level operative. Moreover, Rockstar cold have used the torture of Mr K a lot more effectively and actually had players get behind it. Knowing that, unlike our normal, rampaging antics in GTA on the streets, torture is much more intimately violent and brutal, why didn't they just make Mr K exactly what he was actually accused of?

I mean, with the political climate and terrorism in the news every day, why not just make Mr K a high level operative and terrorist? Why not make him an Al Quaeda member, captured from a cell, detained, and tortured for information he actually had? Then it would be both believable that he resisted the first THREE tortures and only caved on the 4th with the most important info, rather than letting it out in drips and drabs, but it would also be more fun for the player than torturing an innocent guy.

I mean, would anyone have an objection to a fantasy torture of an actual, real-live terrorist?

Well for once we can agree on something.

I, for one, think GTA has no business doing social commentary like that, in fact, I think it's quite hypocritical of a GTA game to try to appeal to this kind of issue when we can pretty much go a killing spree on a daily basis.

ChiroVette

Of course there's no way to avoid it because the whole reason he's broken out to be silenced is so he doesn't rat out leading to the arrests of Derrick and his associates. Why would Niko and Packie go to all that trouble just to let him go?

Of all the things I didn't like about GTA IV, that wasn't even on my radar. In truth, if I remember that mission right, letting him go would have made absolutely zero sense to the story, which painted him as a rat who would open his mouth as soon as he had to.

Well for once we can agree on something.

I know, right? I am looking out my window to see if the Four Horsemen are riding down my block. So far, so good! No blood moon, no three frogs coming out of the mouth of The Beast; no swarm of locusts darkening my sky.

I think we may have dodged a bullet on this one!

I, for one, think GTA has no business doing social commentary like that, in fact, I think it's quite hypocritical of a GTA game to try to appeal to this kind of issue when we can pretty much go a killing spree on a daily basis.

I never actually thought of it this way, to be honest. I had always sort of shrugged my shoulders and said, "Whatever. If Houser wants to use the game as a bully pulpit to lecture us on the evils of torture in America, then Godspeed. But I think you bring up a good point. While I am not sure that I can agree that Rockstar has no business doing social commentary, because it is a viable writing tool, after all, I also see where you're coming from about the whole thing being hypocritical when you allow the kinds of debauchery and violence GTA always has. I mean, does Rockstar really think they are actually teaching anyone anything by using a poorly implemented, lazily written mission like that to basically ram torture down the player's throat, and then think they can shake one another's hands in self aggrandizing adulation over the fact that they showed us how evil torture is? Meanwhile, murder, mayhem, and slaughtering law enforcement and civilians by the hundreds can all be mitigated by getting out of the police's line of sight until they forget you even exist, much less murdered half of their friends on the force?

Again, other than the contrived, strained, and clumsy writing of that scene, the only real issue I have with the torture scene is, as you hinted at, in a game like GTA, the message Rockstar is preaching really kind of loses something. Kind of like Dan Houser decided to draw some arbitrary line in the sand and take us along for the ride. Good observation on your part.

Cheatz_N_Trickz

Common sense tells me that when you said "That goes for all the people who criticised this part of the game." that you meant "That goes for all the people who criticised this part of the game." There really isn't a whole lot of wiggle-room in that, is there?

Except I didn't say just that, did I? If you want to latch onto a statement without taking into account the context it was in (what I said before that) then thats your problem.

If you were cherry-picking your intended "targets" you should have said so.

Theres no need to make a distinction, it shouldn't have to be spelled out for you.

It isn't my fault that you unintentionally lumped all people criticizing this mission for ANY REASON into the same group without even considering criticisms like mine, which are logistical and not emotional.

I didn't lump them all into the same group, even unintentionally, you're the only one thinks this. Remember, thats the conclusion you reached based on...nothing. Literally, a lack of distinction is what led you to that.

ChiroVette

Except I didn't say just that, did I?..Theres no need to make a distinction, it shouldn't have to be spelled out for you...I didn't lump them all into the same group, even unintentionally, you're the only one thinks this. Remember, thats the conclusion you reached based on...nothing. Literally, a lack of distinction is what led you to that...I worded my post as I intended. You misinterpreted.

Hahaha Silly me! When you said:

Maybe you shouldnt be playing games like GTA or TLOU if you are this sensitive. That goes for all the people who criticised this part of the game.

I thought you meant this:

Maybe you shouldnt be playing games like GTA or TLOU if you are this sensitive. That goes for all the people who criticised this part of the game.

Apparently you meant something entirely different than what you actually said. Next time I respond to one of your posts, I won't actually read your exact words and respond to them. I will break out my trusty Tarot cards and maybe see if I can find a Divining Rod on Amazon.

ChiroVette

Next time I respond to one of your posts, I won't actually read your exact words and respond to them.

Considering every response you've ever given, to me and others, that is apparently your modus operandi for replying anyway.

If by that you mean making sense by clearly elucidating a position, then defending it articulately and without disparaging comments, then, yeah, that is my MO, definitely.

And you still have not actually explained how I mysteriously "took you out of context" when I replied to your exact words and complete post, without surreptitiously quote-mining like you just did. Oddly enough, I actually expected more from you. You can't even cop to your own exact words. You really ought to see if you can get hired doing media relations for Trump. Just deny everything, even with proof. Just try and change the subject, when backed into a corner, like you just did.

If you can get into his cabinet before he gets impeached, I think you can make a lot of money!

On topic:

You know it occurs to me that while the torture in this mission is a little pointless and out of context with the story, it isn't any more brutal than the killing of the Other Mr. K. In fact, Mr. Phillips is actually a much more brutal mission than By the Book, when you really think about it. I would suggest that anyone who has problems with the brutal nature of By the Book should replay the execution mission, Mr. Phillips a few times. I think you may not find the torture of Mr. K so distasteful if you lubricate your senses a little by executing that other Mr. K a bunch of times.

Edit: Oddly enough, that isn't a diss of IV or its fans. I think that people often overlook the brutality of the mission, Mr. Phillips when complaining about how graphic By the Book is.

Lioshenka

I did not like this, but did it anyway. What I found much worse than this was a mission in GTA 4 where you had to steal an old guy from prison and kill him. There was no way to avoid this, no way of letting him go etc. I spent a lot of time trying to somehow pass the mission without killing him, in the end, I managed to get him to run after me and slip off the cliff and drowning. I felt bad for not being able to help him, but at least it was his own fault for not being careful.

I hated R* for this mission.

Of course there's no way to avoid it because the whole reason he's broken out to be silenced is so he doesn't rat out leading to the arrests of Derrick and his associates. Why would Niko and Packie go to all that trouble just to let him go?

The way the mission portrayed him made me believe he was a good man. I would rather have given him a chance to see if he could keep his mouth shut.

I mean, we got a choice of sparing some of the other characters, why not him?

Cheatz_N_Trickz

And you still have not actually explained how I mysteriously "took you out of context"

By only replying to the part you are latching onto and highlighting, instead of considering the first part where I suggest OP is perhaps too sensitive. Thus the second part, naturally stating that goes for all who criticised [FOR THAT SAME REASON] this part of the game.

Oddly enough, I actually expected more from you. You can't even cop to your own exact words. You really ought to see if you can get hired doing media relations for Trump. Just deny everything, even with proof. Just try and change the subject, when backed into a corner, like you just did.

ChiroVette

And you still have not actually explained how I mysteriously "took you out of context"

By only replying to the part you are latching onto and highlighting, instead of considering the first part where I suggest OP is perhaps too sensitive. Thus the second part, naturally stating that goes for all who criticised [FOR THAT SAME REASON] this part of the game.

I replied to the entire post. Here, I will add this in without any emphasis on the part I previously underlined. For your convenience, I removed all markup that I previously used for emphasis, since that is obviously a stumbling block for you.

Maybe you shouldnt be playing games like GTA or TLOU if you are this sensitive.That goes for all the people who criticised this part of the game.

You first called out the OP for being "sensitive" and then you went on to say that this indictment "goes for all people who criticized this part of the game." There is no taking you out of context. That is a plain-text reading of your post. I have very good reading comprehension, AND if I misunderstand someone, when my factual error is pointed out, I am the first person to say, "Ah okay I see what you mean now, I misread your post."

But even after going 15 rounds with you on this, you have still yet to show me what I misinterpreted there. You keep accusing me of latching onto some "part" of your post to take you out of context. But not once have you demonstrated that any rational person would be required to interpret your post any way other than the actual words you used.

You tried "adding some words" later on, and simultaneously accused me of not seeing what you didn't write in the first place, than acted like it was on me for not seeing what you never wrote, by saying it was common sense. But that is clearly not true.

Edit: By the way, you never said or hinted at in that entire first post that the second part contained some qualifier of criticizing "for that same reason." You simply said "this goes for ALL people who criticized this part of the game." ALL people, not SOME PEOPLE who criticized if for the same reason you were saying the OP did. ALL PEOPLE means all people, not "some people."